Who Is Waste Free Wanda?
New Zealand’s environmental superhero, Waste Free Wanda, is a one-woman musical act that supports children to make positive choices around waste reduction. Full of humour, catchy songs and an engaging storyline, this interactive show is a one-stop solution for educating communities on how to be the change when it comes to reducing single-use plastic on the planet, while also enabling the arts.
Written and performed by award-winning singer/songwriter Anna van Riel, Waste Free Wanda is an educational, entertaining and engaging solution to help to inspire change. Waste Free Wanda teaches young audiences how they can reduce their plastic waste and discover tools that prevent us from relying solely on recycling to help to save our planet.
Through an engaging story-line, actions and catchy song hooks, Wanda inspires her audiences to promote positive change in the world around them. The Waste Free Wanda show has toured throughout the Otago and Southland regions and is available to be booked for shows by schools, communities and festivals all over New Zealand.
NZ's newest and most loved superhero Waste Free Wanda
Getting to Know Wanda
Dubbed NZ’s own ‘Captain Planet”, Anna van Riel has been touring her interactive environmental stage show Waste Free Wanda through schools and festivals across New Zealand’s Deep South.
Community, arts and environment have a key focus in Anna’s life. Having successfully toured her way across North America in 2013, with family in tow, Anna resourcefully engineered her own self-managed house concert circuit through sustainable and earth homes. Since then her passion for community and connecting with audiences, has led her on a musical journey that has been both meaningful and unique.
When performing for her younger audiences, mother of two, Anna brings a wholesome, loving and encouraging air to her shows. Her goal is to support tamariki to understand solutions around caring for Papatūānuku, and finding tools to help ease the growing concerns around eco-anxiety in children, all the while having lots of fun!
Nominated Best Children’s Album and Best Children’s Song at the NZ Music Awards in both 2016 and 2019, and in the International Songwriting Competition in 2020, Anna’s has also taken home Best Song for Children at the Australian Songwriters Association Awards in both 2017 and 2019.